Change The World With Kindness, One Person At A Time

Kindness sets off a chain reaction

As we become more aware of being less critical and more grateful on a day-to-day basis, others around us change. Because kindness has a way of becoming the salve for many wounds. Determined caring for that difficult colleague can touch that person’s heart in a way that nothing else will.

Kindness starts a chain reaction. It replicates itself. It goes viral. In a beautiful, miraculous way, it spreads by transforming those it touches so they become carriers and pass it along.

We tested an initiative called the 30-Day Kindness Challenge that has since spread around the world. And two-thirds of participants described seeing the person they were being kind to suddenly become more gentle, caring, and attentive to others, themselves!

The people doing the 30-Day Kindness Challenge realized that they had become a sort of super-carrier: they were spreading kindness in all directions without really intending to.

Although popular culture is fascinated by stories of overnight success, our world sees far more monumental change as the byproduct of consistent small activity. Great canyons are formed by the persistence of tiny creeks. Masses of people wake up to great evils through the determined pursuit of justice by a few.

The domino pattern is created by one domino at a time doing its part to create a design that has a spectacular big-picture impact. And unlike carving a canyon, kindness dominoes often spread change with an almost astonishing rapidity. I cannot count the dozens and dozens of stories I have personally heard of those who did the 30-Day Kindness Challenge for a mother-in-law or a colleague who had been difficult for years only to see a profound transformation begin within just a few weeks!